Candidate Number: 41152

Essay Question: Q8a) “It is morally wrong to use animals for food when it is not necessary

to do so.” Present one ethical argument EITHER for OR against this claim, and reflect on the

limitations of the argument you have presented.

Course Code: PH103

Academic Year: 2019-2020

Class Teacher: Cecily Whiteley

Word Count: 1500

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1/Introduction

I will present Singer’s utilitarian argument which staunchly defends the statement, first

reformulating it through a premise-conclusion format while simultaneously elucidating on the

principles he uses to defend his view. Subsequently, I will offer two of my own cases that

prove Singer’s argument is self-refuting, followed by discussing whether I believe

incorporating ‘inherent value’ into a utilitarianism framework is suitable for restoring

Singer’s argument. I will conclude by asserting that there still remains incompleteness in

Singer’s attempt to motivate (contextually) a vegan diet.

2/Singer’s Argument

It is predicated on the 3 utilitarian axioms, needing to be obeyed for an action to be moral

(Mill, 1863). Axiom’s 1 [A1] and 2 [A2] establish Singer’s main argument in axiom 3 [A3]:

1.Only ‘overall welfare’ possesses an inherent value.

2.Everyone’s interests count equally

P1/We must act morally

P2/We must respect the fundamental principle of equality [TFPOE] iff we acting morally

P3/Sentience is necessary and sufficient [N&S] for possessing interests

P4/Possessing interests is N&S for those interests to be considered.

P5/In order to respect TFPOE, all entities whose interests are considered must have them

considered equally.

C1/Humans and Non-Humans must receive equal consideration of interests when we act

morally

(Bentham, 1789)

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Here are some important presuppositions: both humans and non-human animals are sentient;

P1-P3 are generally accepted principles by philosophers; A2 and TFPOE are interchangeable.

P4 must be true to adhere to A1. Hence sentience, N&S for the possession of interests, must

be the ‘only defensible boundary’ when deciding whose interests must be considered. This is

because every other possible boundary- e.g. intelligence, rational agency etc. violate A1 by

effectively giving inherent value to those who possess that boundary-defining characteristic

by only considering their interests. Overall welfare would no longer be the only source of

inherent value.

Conversely, sentience implies that once a being possesses interests, there is no moral

justification to discount those. Therefore, sentence adheres to A1 by ensuring that only

overall welfare has inherent value, warranting the position that all sentient beings (i.e. all

those who possess interests) must have their interests considered. Consequently, only

sentience holds moral relevance; all other characteristics are morally irrelevant.

All sentient beings must receive an equal consideration of interests because we must adhere

to A2 and TFPOE. This makes P5 true, and validates C1, needed for Singer’s main argument;

both P1-P5 are true with A1 and A2 being respected.

Singer coins the term ‘speciesism’- a failure to apply the equal consideration of interests (i.e.

TFPOE) beyond one’s own species -to challenge people who posit that TFPOE is only

exclusive to humans. This claim is incorrect because this discriminates on a morally

irrelevant difference (taxonomy), and Singer offers the analogy to racism to comprehend why

speciesism should be deemed morally wrong. Since society accepts that racism is wrong, we

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must accept speciesism is wrong, reaffirming the view that equal consideration of interests is

applicable to sentient entities regardless of species.

I also want to clarify that this implies speciesism also occurs if an entity’s interests are

entirely ill-considered due to their species since their interests are not equally considered,

hence also violating TFPOE.

3.Given a set of possible actions, only the right one ensures the largest ‘overall

welfare’

P6/Consuming animal products for food when unnecessary (i.e. there are non-animal

alternatives) does not ensure the largest overall welfare

C2/Consuming animal products for food when unnecessary is morally wrong

Singer states “…equal considerations does not allow major interests to be sacrificed for

minor ones”. (Singer,1979). The magnitude of suffering faced by animals in our choice to

use their products for food far outweighs the utility we gain from (when unnecessarily)

consuming animal products. It is particularly evident with battery farming methods, e.g.

keeping hens in wire cages, which intuitively highlights cruel animal treatment. However,

Singer extends this to more ‘humane’ methods of animal treatment because of the persistence

of castration, separation etc. Even the act of slaughter itself is morally wrong: “Killing a

sentient being for food directly reduces the amount of utility in the world by removing that

being.” (Crisp, 1988).

Resultantly, I describe Singer’s position as vegan in this context; choosing this diet ensures a

much higher overall welfare level compared to animal product consumption by mitigating the

major suffering to animals faced in consumption of their products. This affirms P6 and C2.

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If non-human animals’ interests were weighed unequally with humans (i.e. C1 was false), it

would likely mean that consuming animal products ensured larger overall welfare, motivating

the opposite conclusion of Singer. (Singer, 2011)

3/Limitations

Singer’s argument does not universally justify veganism, making it self-defeating. Here are 2

of my own hypothetical scenarios to illustrate:

1.You feel like eating meat. There is a vegan restaurant nearby but you hate vegan

food. You see 1 Lion trying to kill 2 gazelles. Do you?

a) Kill 1 Lion for its meat to save 2 Gazelles

b) Do nothing letting 2 gazelles die

2.All forms of unnecessary animal agriculture are banned. You invent a life-lasting

drug which nulls the sentience of all non-human animals and can be applied

painlessly to them. Do you?

a) Prescribe this drug allowing millions of people to consume animal products

b) Ban this drug

In both cases utilitarianism entails that only option A is morally acceptable. But this is the

only option which encourages you to eat meat. Option B is morally wrong despite it being the

option Singer’s argument motivates the reader to choose. Utilitarianism is insufficient for

veganism; Singer’s position is self-defeating.

This problem stems from A1, which implies that all entities possess no fundamental rights. If

we want to accept utilitarianism (like Singer) as a suitable framework for promoting

veganism, we must modify our axioms in light of this issue. Regan (2004) suggests

overcoming utilitarianism requires a rights-based view: by virtue of existence, an entity is

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guarded a set of fundamental rights (i.e. inherent value). Contextually, these would include

the right not to be needlessly killed or needlessly suffer etc.

I have reformulated the axioms for a Regan-Singer utilitarian framework, accounting for

Regan’s proposals:

A1*/Overall welfare and its Contributors possess inherent value

A2*/Everyone’s interests and inherent value count equally

A2*/After the expected quantity of subjects with their rights violated is minimised, given

the remaining set of possible actions, only the right one produces the largest overall welfare.

However, many seek to limit the scope of inherent value to just humans and exclude non-

human animals on the prerequisite of rational agency (to differentiate humans from non-

humans), particularly transposed in Kant’s formula for autonomy. Only humans possess

inherent value from:

1.ability to internalise moral law

2.ability to pursue goals/objectives

Possessing {1} means we have a duty to respect the moral law, which requires respecting

everyone else’s {2}. Since animals lack {2}, we have no direct duty to them. (Korsgaard,

2018)

In its radical interpretation, as Hsiao (2018) endorses, we can consume animal products for

food unrestricted since our ‘moral interest’ of consuming animal products always outweighs

the ‘non-moral interest’ of animal suffering.

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But Regan highlights the implausibility of this view through modifying Singer’s argument the

motivated C1 (but TFPOE is now defined as everyone having equally inherent value):

For example, using the cognitively disabled for food would intuitively be considered immoral

since it violates their inherent value, yet they are not in the scope of rational agency. We still

grant them inherent value. Rationality is clearly inadequate since it is arbitrary. However, to

then resolve this by only extending inherent value to just humans to account for the

cognitively disabled/humans without rational agency while giving no inherent value to other

species is ‘blatant speciesism’. Therefore, the only way to overcome this is by accepting that

all sentient beings possess inherent value and all inherent value is possessed equally,

paralleling how Singer does when motivating C1.

But even after showing that non-humans and humans possess equally inherent value, A3*

remains insufficient for veganism. Applying painkillers to animals may violate their

fundamental rights, meaning option B must be pursued in scenario 2. However, the moral

option in scenario 1 does not change; more animals have their right to life violated in option

B. Singer’s utilitarian stance cannot imply a vegan diet, even after this modification.

4/Conclusion

Although Singer’s argument shows potential promise, it cannot be universally used to assert

it is morally wrong to use animals for food, even after accounting for inherent value. The new

set of axioms from the Regan-Singer hybrid strengthen Singer’s argument but only reinforce

its incompleteness. But his anti-speciesism rhetoric holds credence given our acceptance of

TFPOE as well as the fact it aids Regan to comfortably withstand scrutiny from views of

‘rational agency’ in his rights-based argument. Interestingly, we actually reach a position

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paralleling Fischer (2018) when analysing both the Singer and Regan-Singer argument,

which contends we can consume animal products for food (albeit through unconventional

methods) while still adhering to “welfare and respect-based concerns”. However, I

deliberately chose to omit other limitations due to relevancy and essay-size concerns, which

may have offered a different conclusion.

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Bibliography:
Barnhill, A., Budolfson, M., Doggett, T., & Fischer, B. (2018-03-29). Arguments for
Consuming Animal Products. In The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics. : Oxford University
Press. Retrieved 8 May. 2020, from
https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199372263.001.0001/oxford
hb-9780199372263-e-11.
Bentham, J. 1789. An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Chapter xvii.
Crisp, Roger. “Utilitarianism and Vegetarianism.” International Journal of Applied
Philosophy 4 (1988): 41–49.
Korsgaard, Christine M. 2018. Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals.
Chapters 1 - 8.
Hsiao, T. (2015a). In defense of eating meat. Journal of Agricultural and Environmental
Ethics, 28(2), 277–291.
Mill, J. S. (1863) Utilitarianism. London, Parker, son, and Bourn. [Web.] Retrieved from the
Library of Congress, https://lccn.loc.gov/11015966.
Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
Print.
Singer, Peter. 1979. Practical Ethics, 3rd edition, Chapter 3 (“Equality for Animals?”)
Singer, Peter. 2011. Practical Ethics, 3rd edition, Chapter 3 (“Equality for Animals?”)